Just to
let you know there is GREAT excitement in the Tertia household – we have 25
more sleeps until Rose has her breast reduction. She is so sweet, she went out and bought two new sexy bra’s
yesterday in size 36C, which is the size we’ve decided she should be. Not too small because big’ish boobs very
much part of her culture, but small enough to suit her small frame. She tried
on a few of my bra’s (I am either a 34C or a 36C) and the size seems to fit her
pretty well.

Once
again, thank you so much to everyone who helped Rose achieve her dream. A big thanks to Boulder for collecting the
funds and to my brother who arranged the transfer of funds from the USA to the
UK through to SA, and for adding in even more money than he already had donated
to make up some of what we lost due to levies and fees. Thanks to you all we managed to collect
around $2600! (after deductions etc) Isn’t that fantastic.

I’ll remind you just before she goes in for
her operation and if you’d like, you can send her a good luck message and I
will print it out for her.

I think the babies are going to miss her
breasts, they love resting their heads against them or patting them. They pat things they like. They pat her breasts a lot.

I don’t
know if you ever have this feeling, maybe you don’t, but sometimes I get this
flash of insecurity about myself, a moment of self-doubt that says “maybe I’m
not really this competent, maybe I am actually not that clever / good at my job
/ good at this mothering thing. Maybe I
am just faking it and sometime soon someone is going to find me out and expose
my lack of competence”.

It
happens far less than it used to, when I was younger I had many more of those
moments. As I get older I realize that
I am actually quite damn good at what I do, and that part of growing is
stretching yourself to do new things, things that you might not be that
competent in initially. This applies
especially in the workplace where it is so much easier to stay in your comfort
zone, where changing jobs, or taking promotions means you have to keep learning
and exposing yourself to new challenges.

In as
far as being mother to twins goes, I’ve had quite a few of these moments of
self-doubt, especially in the beginning. At times I’ve felt like a real fake. Compared to many mothers (and especially mothers of twins), I have it
easy, I have Rose. I have to do far
less than so many others do, and when people remark to me that it must be hard
mothering two babies, I feel like a liar and fake because in reality my life is
actually so fantastically wonderful. I
almost wait for the tap on the shoulder to say ‘hey, we all know you aren’t
really that good at mothering twins, you have help’.

And then
I have moments like this morning, when both Marko and Rose are out for most of the
day, and it’s just me and the babes. And I did wonderfully well in my role as mother to twin babies. The downside of having someone as wonderful
and switched on as Rose is that I am seldom alone with the babies, and I miss
that. I want to feel what it is like to
be just me and them. Rose is completely
unobtrusive, before I met Rose I was worried that having someone in my house
all the time would be uncomfortable, but Rose fits in like family. She is totally comfortable here and we are
totally comfortable having her here. But it is nice to be alone with the babies, to have a chance to play
real mom and to have to do it all by myself.

Don’t be
mistaken, I am not saying I don’t think I am a good mom, I know I am. Or that I am saying I don’t want Rose around
or that I don’t appreciate having help – Rose is my sanity saver and my hero,
it was just nice to have that moment this morning when I realized that no
matter what, no matter how much help I have, I am their mother, and I am
actually damn good at it.

A dear
friend of mine, the wonderful Janine, sister to my partner in crime Belinda,
wife to the incredibly talented Scott, tentatively announced her pregnancy this
week (tentatively because she skates very closely to the infertile line and has
lost four babies already). Instead of
the normal pang I get when I hear a pg announced (MUCH less of a pang when it
is your (infertile) friend obviously), I feel decidedly nauseous. In fact, abject fear might have been closer
to the truth.

I am not
sure whether the first few weeks / months of motherhood scarred me permanently
(I found it really tough), or whether I am just totally ‘done’, but I know now
that I most definitely do NOT want another baby.

Its
funny, because I always thought I would have as many kids as I could have
(fertility allowing), instead I live in fear of accidentally falling pg. I know, I know – chances are miniscule of
that happening (when you ovulate ONCE a year, chances are pretty slim that you
will have sex on that day AND that you will get pg) but you never know.

And so
I’ve decided to close down the factory, at least temporarily. I am having the Mirena fitted in a week’s
time. I am actually so relieved to have
made the decision. I really do not want
another baby, not now, probably not ever.

Do you
think I will feel like this forever? Those of you who went on to have more kids, did you feel like I do now,
when the baby was 9 months and then change your mind? I keep wondering whether I will change my mind and want another,
but the way I feel now, I really don’t think I will. I also want to know whether I should get rid of my baby stuff or
keep it.

I’ve
heard v good things about the Mirena. I
hope it wont turn me into a (even bigger) bitch like the pill does.

What I want to know is, if by accident your
partner dialled your number from his cell phone, and he/she didn’t know – i.e.
you could hear their conversation and they didn’t realize – would you listen in
on that conversation? Or would you hang
up?

Just to make it interesting, lets say that
when this happened your partner was out for a few drinks with his/her
friends.

I’d hang up. I don’t want to hear things that I can’t ever unhear. I am a bit ‘head in the sand’ but I really
don’t want to know / hear every thing. Marko would definitely listen in for a bit. I asked him what he would do.

This is going to sound completely fucked
up. I realized the other day that there
is something I miss about the whole IVF run-around I went through. And before you cart me off to the loony bin
or accuse me of being secretly in love with my Dr (which is actually no secret
at all ;-) ), let me explain.

Most of infertility is completely fucking
terrible. Horrible beyond compare. But there was a part of it that perfectly
suited an odd little quirk of mine, and that is that it became a project, an
obsession, a calling if you will. I did
infertility with passion, with commitment, with addiction. It was my life, my focus, it defined my
friends and my (cyber) social life. It
became my area of study, my field of expertise. And I was damn good at it. It was horrible, it was terrible, but it was my project.

And now that project is finished, and I
find myself at a bit of a loss for my next project.

I realized that I love having projects – I
need projects. I need to obsess about
something, to focus on something, to study it, became good at it. I am ever so slightly obsessive compulsive,
just ever so slightly.

I’ve had projects around gym’ing and
dieting – and I’ll end up looking like Anorexic Barbie because I go completely
overboard.

The problem is that my projects are not
always wholesome. I’ve had some bad
(but omg, what a lot of fun) projects.

I need a new project. And yes, the babes are my priority, of
course they are, but they aren’t a project as such, they are a lifetime
thing. A forever thing. They don’t meet the requirements of being a
project (a total immersion to the point of obsession on something for a fixed
period of time).

No, I need a project. And I need one quickly. Or else I will end up with a project that
might not be v good. And when I am bad,
I am v bad.

(Luckily for me, I might just have a project
coming up that could be v v v good. I
am meeting someone on the 4th Nov to discuss it. I’ll fill you in then. V exciting
stuff! Watch this space.)

Wednesday is cousin Dylan's birthday. He is a very fast runner and a very good
climber. He is also very strong. He lives all the way in Tanzania with his sister Amber and his mommy and daddy. His cousins miss him very much.

Belinda – she of the (still) no car fame –
and I were chatting on the way home from work, as we do, and we decided that we
would do a much better job of running this country, nay, the whole world, than
the incumbent rulers do.

We started off fairly sedately in our
revolution of the rule – things like a four-day working week, flexitime for
those who choose it, increased pay, more holidays etc, but we decided why stop
there.

In our future view of the country, all wine
farms would be state owned and it would be essential to spend at least half
your day sipping Chardonnay / Sauvignon Blanc in summer and perhaps a nice
Pinot Noir in winter. No one would have
to cook, ever. Unless of course you
wanted to. In which case of course you
could do that. (Belinda likes to cook,
I hate it)

We, Belinda and I, wouldn’t work. We’d be paid lots for holding this very
responsible position, but we wouldn’t actually do any real work. Unless drinking wine is work, we’d be doing
a lot of that. Which is actually work
if you own a wine farm (which we would) – because you couldn’t be shipping out
any old crappy wine, you’d need to taste it to make sure it was ok before you
sent it out.

We’d also ban thin, pretty people. They’d have to wear headscarves and eat
donuts all the time. In fact fat would
be the new thin.

No one would be allowed to drive slowly in
our lane. We’d have our own lane. And we’d drive as fast as we wanted.

We’d ban big stupid slow trucks from the
road. They’re just irritating and they
make stinky smoke. Trucks would only be
allowed to be on the road when we weren’t using it.

Unless they were wine trucks. In which case they would be allowed to use
the road any time they wanted to.

We’d also form alliances with obscure
countries who have lovely beaches. We’d
ask them to build a nice beach house for us and we would do president swaps –
we’d go stay on their island and they could come stay in our country for a
bit. We’d ask that there are no thin
pretty people on the beach when we go there. And that there be cocktails. Served by handsome chaps with no shirts on. No wine. When in Rome you need to drink cocktails, or so the saying goes.

We’d have long lunches every day and invite
all our girlfriends over. We’d drink
wine and have fun.

Afternoon naps would be compulsory. Any one who made a noise during afternoon
naptime would be locked in jail and made to press grapes.

We’d be happy, fun rulers. We would insist on having happy, fun people
in our country. If people weren’t happy
and fun we’d ban them from coming out their houses. We don’t want no sad sack people spoiling our day.

But mostly we’d just sit on the veranda of
our wine farm, admiring the view, sipping our wine while we sign important
documents and talk on the cell phone to other rulers. We’d send them boxes of wine as gifts and schedule time in each
other’s beach houses. They’d love us
and want to be our BFF.

Phew, been a hectic last 24 hours, wept
yesterday when I wrote the post about Ben, wept when I received a beautiful
email from husband about it this morning (so beautiful), and wept again when I read
your comments. So no more weeping for
today. Eyes burny and sore. On to some light stuff.

I really feel for people who choose to live
childfree (and even more so for those poor souls who have no choice) and who
have to socialize with people with kids and be subjected to stories about what
Johnny did all the time. I mean lets
face it; your kids are a LOT cuter and more adorable to you than to other
people.

My poor darling friend M came to visit yesterday. M and her husband T have decided not to have
kids (so far, it is not written in stone). M is the only one of us G&D group of friends that I have written
about that does not have kids.

Whereas in the past we could sit and bond
quietly over a glass of wine, we now have to juggle two very noisy babies,
peering at each other over a bouncing head, picking up dropped sippy cups,
wiping up puke etc. (We still had that glass of wine though, one must maintain
certain levels of decorum.)

I suppose being a former infertile, I am
very aware of what it must be like for people with no kids, so I am v conscious
about not going on and on about my kids (which is damn hard cos you know, my
kids are so flipping cute and adorable. And clever.)

Anyway, so I really did try and not spend
hours telling them about the latest cutest trick the babies could do (although
I will confess to making Adam clap handies and Kate doing the babababa thing),
but then I absolutely cracked up when I heard Marko talking to them.

(am laughing my ass off just thinking about
it)

I went to do something and as I came back I
heard Marko telling my friend’s husband T something about the kids’ pooping
habits and that Adam was constipated. Hysterical! The poor
bugger. He (T) politely asked ‘but how
do you know if he is constipated’ – and then (oh the shame) I proceeded to tell
him how one would know (hard stool, lots of pressing, not regular – just in
case you wanted to know). I then
sheepishly said “ha ha – pooping is a big thing when you have babies, it
becomes a bit of a health check”. (And
it’s true! The first thing I ask Rose when I come home is ‘how was your day’,
then ‘how long did they sleep and did they make a poo’)

It was actually so cute, a real nice moment
for me to hear Marko talk about Adam poo’ing – we’ve come a long way, Marko and
I. From years of infertility and here
we are, telling our friends all about our kid’s pooping habits. What a special moment – hahahaha!

So dear M and T – sorry about that! Didn’t mean to regale you with stories about
poop. And T – sorry about the puke on
your pants, hope it comes out ok.

When Ben was born, in the few days he was
with us, I searched the Net frantically for any stories of hope. I read up frantically on brain bleeds, on
CP, on apnoea and bradycardia, on PDA’s, on his chance of survival, on his
chance for any type of normal life. It
was a frantic, desperate search for any help or support I could get.

Along the way I came across SA Preemies, a support group for parents of preemies in South Africa. I joined them and they gave me wonderful
support. Then Ben died. And I had nowhere to go. It was then that I met Sheena, a fellow
preemie mom whose beautiful preemie daughter had died. The two of us became the core of a support
system for people who had lost their preemie babies. It was a small group, as South Africa is not a big Internet
community.

It helped me tremendously to give support
to other people. It helped in my
healing.

However, it is becoming increasing hard for
me to be that support person, or even to receive the news of other preemies
lost. I know people think it would be
easier for me to deal with the loss of Ben now that I have Adam and Kate, but
instead it’s harder. Seeing how much
they love and laugh, how they grow and develop every day, loving them so much,
it makes me ache for the child of mine who will never get to experience
that. It is physically painful for me
to think that Ben will never laugh from his belly when I swing him around, or
get excited when he sees his daddy. All
these little things that Adam and Kate do every day make me realize how much
little Ben has lost, and how much I have lost through his passing.

I can’t go there any more, I can’t see and
hear other stories of preemies without a physical ache in my soul.

I want to withdraw myself as the support
person, but more than that, I want to be taken off the email list. I feel terrible about this, but I can’t
handle hearing the sad news of preemies lost, and to be honest, I find it hard
to read the wonderful stories of preemies who have made it.

However, I am very torn. A part of me says that I am being unfaithful
to Ben’s memory by removing myself from the group. Logically I know that is not true, but I am scared that people
will interpret it as such. The only way
he lives on is in my memory, and his father’s and family. And your memories as well. I don’t want him forgotten about, or not
spoken about.

I don’t want to “move on” – please don’t
say it, don’t even think it. You will never “move on” from the death of your
child. Ever. Just as that child is from your flesh, just as that child owns a
piece of your heart, their loss will always leave a hole that no other child
can fill. Children are not replaceable
or interchangeable. So it’s not about
moving on. But it’s also not about wanting
to live in that sad place forever, no, it’s not that.

I think it’s about not having to brave
about the raw spot. I don’t want to be
brave about it, I want to be focus my energies on just me and my family. I feel as if the energy it took for me to be
brave has worn out, I need to not have to be strong for others. Maybe not forever, but for now.

So, I am going to ask them to withdraw me
as the support person, and to be taken off the email list. It makes me sad though. It seems to be so symbolic in a way that
makes me sad.

It’s very hard. I miss him so very very much. My first-born. My special
son. Wish you were here with me, my
boy. Love you deeply. With all my heart. Mommy’s little boy.